


Speechless

by INMH



Category: BioShock, BioShock Infinite, BioShock: Burial at Sea
Genre: Burial at Sea, Child Death, Decapitation of a Child (Not described in any real detail), Disturbing Content, Gen, Injury of a child, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-29
Updated: 2013-11-29
Packaged: 2018-01-02 23:01:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1062687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look into the flashback shown in Burial at Sea. NO, seriously, heed that warning in the tags, it is the sole reason the story is rated Mature.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speechless

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaand one more time, SERIOUSLY REGARD THE WARNING IN THE TAGS. I was freaking myself out writing this, however non-graphic I tried to be.

“ _Oh no, no, look out-!_ ”  
  
She’s still looking when it happens.  
  
Rosalind Lutece is, by no means, a woman with a weak constitution. She has seen blood and death and a fair number of grotesque things in her life, before and after the little… _Accident_ that left her and her brother in the state they are now. She has seen and withstood them with her usual composure, never crying or screaming or panicking as others might.  
  
But this- she has never seen something like this.  
  
It’s on the ground, below where the tear was just a moment before. It moves for maybe a split second, still thinking that it’s attached to its… _body…_ and then goes still. Rosalind does not turn away until it does.  
  
Robert is making strange noises, like he’s trying to desperately muffle a scream that keeps threatening to bubble up and break loose. They’re just audible over Elizabeth’s shaky, continuous screams. She’s still looking at it, shaking hands up near her mouth like she means to cover it but can’t.  
  
Comstock is silent. She cannot see his face. Greedy, horrid man or not, she knows at least that he didn’t intend for this to happen. That does not erase his responsibility for it in any capacity, but at least (this one) isn’t a complete animal.

Rosalind, likewise, can make no sound. She can’t speak, she can’t scream or cry or utter any sound of distress. She wanders over to the chair off to the side of the contraption, sits down, and does not say anything. It does not feel like there’s something there that’s being repressed- a scream, a sob, a gasp- but rather, it feels like startling emptiness. As though what has just happened is so incomprehensible that she cannot find an appropriate response.

Elizabeth isn’t screaming anymore. Now she’s sobbing, and it’s quite reasonable that she of all people would have such a reaction. Rosalind is turned away from them, but she imagines that Robert is trying to (inaudibly) comfort her- provided, of course, that he’s recovered himself.

“Oh my God,” Elizabeth cries. “Oh my God.”

Comstock is still silent. Rosalind isn’t even entirely certain that he’s still there.

_We’ll have to- We can’t leave- We can’t just **leave** it there, not like that- We’ll probably have to- **bury** it-_

Nausea comes like a blow to the stomach, and she covers her mouth with a shaking hand. Rosalind tries to breathe, shuts her eyes and tries to pull herself together. Gruesome (horrifying) as it is, prolonged hysterics will do no one any good. She is nothing if not pragmatic, logical: Such reactions are human but, ultimately, serve little other purpose than to prove one’s humanity.

Rosalind does not make a conscious decision to stand up. But she is, and then she is retrieving a box from the closet in the hall. She does what she has to, and by some miracle there is no blood, no mess. She does not look, does not think, and does not attempt to cope or process at that moment. That can come later, if at all.

The box goes onto the table, and Rosalind deliberately makes sure that it is not immediately visible to Elizabeth.

Some time between Rosalind getting up and the box going on the table, Comstock disappears. Whether he’s left the house or simply the room is neither her concern nor is at the top of her list of priorities.

She approaches her brother and Elizabeth straight-backed and straight-faced, but does not say anything when Robert looks at her. A rare moment indeed when Rosalind Lutece does not know what she must (or even can) say. He puts his hand on her arm, and she thinks maybe she sees the barest trace of a smile.  
  
Ultimately, neither of them needs to speak. They know.  
  
Comstock may have fired the gun, but they were the ones that handed it to him.  
  
_This is our doing._  
  
-End


End file.
